


Adjö

by Swithe_Ist



Category: Holby City
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, M/M, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21529945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swithe_Ist/pseuds/Swithe_Ist
Summary: Henrik Hanssen has graduated Rigden University and is about to catch his flight back home, to Sweden. First, he must say farewell to his 'colleagues'.
Relationships: David Hopkins/Roxanna MacMillan, Henrik Hanssen/Roxanna MacMillan, John Gaskell/Henrik Hanssen
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Adjö

**Author's Note:**

> Meant to be a little one-shot, but I may do another chapter if I can find it in me. Don't get your hopes up. Also I have very obviously never been to Boston, lol. I'm playing fast and loose on the uni's location within the city.

Rigden University’s campus was a hive of intersecting blocks spread out over the city of Boston. On the outskirts of these, past the dormitories, administrative hubs and storage facilities, lay green swathes that were designated as such by the city, keeping the region’s fenland safely away from stubborn, greedy developers who wouldn’t blink at the chance to build on the soggy ground, if it meant turning a profit.

One of these was a park by a small reservoir – nominally a lake – one that held special significance to Henrik, beknownst only to John. It wasn’t his choice to gather there to say farewell to his friends; it was an uncomfortable coincidence and it had him rather more on edge than he’d prefer for this historic occasion. He wasn’t the only one either. John was in a ferocious sulk and even the reliably warm David was brooding. It was at that point that he realised he would have to put aside his feelings and take charge before someone said something that they would regret, especially as Roxanna had begun to organize her boys.

“I’ve packed you a sandwich, some orange juice and some crisps. I know you didn’t get the exit row, but you really don’t want to have to be in charge of that stuff if the plane… I mean the plane isn’t going to crash obviously…”

“Roxanna.”

“… it’s just additional stress you could do without, is what I meant to say. Mind your manners too, please. You can be very unpleasant when you’re stressed. No-one likes flying, you’re not the only one, remember.”

“I’ll behave,” asserted Henrik.

“Good. You said you’d be arriving…?”

“At four in the afternoon. Swedish time.”

“Four. Okay,” she repeated nervously.  
Roxanna looked over at John sympathetically and then between David and Henrik. Henrik could tell she was stalling.  
“I know you said you didn’t want anything, but I got you this to remember me by. It’s just a token, really.”

Her words were in earnest; she truly did not expect the others to have gotten anything when Henrik had made it clear he didn’t want a fuss. Likely because on a lesser occasion, David would’ve complied, though John never did. Leaving college was another matter entirely and he wondered if it had sunk in properly yet.

One of her gloved hands reached into her bag and pulled out a smallish origami box. The dark paper was gilt with the outlines of roses writhen in a beautiful, antiquated pattern.

Henrik’s eyebrows knit together and he smiled crookedly as he moved to take it. Over the last year she had begun to get into origami after he’d jokingly made some paper cranes to decorate lunch with one day. She had gotten rather good at it and he had to admit he was rather jealous. The precision it called for was good practice for surgery as well. He cracked open the box’s lid and admired her handiwork proudly.

“Well, now, what’s this in here?”

A tiny little enamel pin! Just like the ones littering her bag, but instead of a band logo or some witty insignia emblazoned on it, it was shaped into a magnificent rose.

“Ah,” he demurred.

Roxanna smiled broadly and pointed to it.

“The rose. Classic, I know, but then so are you, Henrik. Besides, I couldn’t help but notice the colour was so like the roses you had in your room. I think they’ll always remind me of you. Classic, distinguished, a bit thorny…”

“It’s beautiful, Roxanna,” said Henrik.

As he ran a finger around the edges of the pin, Henrik swallowed and tried to ignore the heat rising on his cheeks. It was pointless and he knew it. Roxanna doubtless saw it as her cue to reach for him, stretching her spindly arms up and around his neck in an embrace that felt far too close when David’s proximity was taken into account.

He glanced over at his friend who smiled weakly in return. There was nothing to say. Each knew his place in this thing between them all, and Henrik self-consciously kept his hands at his side.

Roxanna pressed her lip to his cheek gently and lingered a second too long before sinking back onto her feet.

“I’m going to miss you, Henrik,” she murmured.

“We’ll all see each other again soon enough,” said Henrik stoically, “And I promise I will call you as soon as I land, alright?”

She nodded, stepping back and putting her arm around David’s waist.

“Alright then.”

David pulled out a small wrapped gift of his own, one that Henrik had been anticipating since he’d arrived with a suspicious rectangular bulge in his coat pocket.

“My turn, I think,” he said gruffly, “Hope you get some mileage out of it.”

Henrik smiled a sheepishly grateful at him before taking it. He and David had spent lots of their time talking about politics and medicine, and wasn’t particularly surprised to find that the book was a very thorough compilation of essays by one of his main ideological influences.

“Ooh, jealous,” said Roxanna.

“Fantastic. Something new to read,” exclaimed Henrik. There was a strange bump in the back of the book, but David reached over and stopped him from pulling whatever it was out.

“Don’t worry, it’s not the receipt,” he joked, “Read it when you get home.”

Henrik looked into his kindly dark eyes and tried to ignore the pang of guilt that struck him. He nodded slowly and folded the tome shut.

“Alright?” prompted David, patting Roxanna on the back gently. “We’re off, yeah? Can’t miss this lecture, babe.”

“Right. David did you make sure—”

“—yeah, Rox. It’s all sorted,” David shifted on the spot and cast a glance over to John, off by the waterside. He was hurling whatever debris he could find off into the deep.

“I suppose this is it, then,” said Roxanna forlornly after a long silence. Her large, expressive eyes turned downwards.

“I suppose it is,” said Henrik evenly, “for now.”

“Be careful, won’t you? And call soon. I’m not going to sleep a wink until I know you’re okay,” she admit as she and David stepped back onto the gravelly, makeshift path leading out of the overgrown grass they were standing in.

“I will,” he affirmed, as she started off. After a few beats, he added, “Don’t forget the trick I taught you with the SMC knot…!”

“I won’t!” she called back loudly. He watched as she lay her head awkwardly against David’s as they strolled off. Regret gnawed at his heart. He tried to ignore it and focus on keeping this memory. Though they would meet again, it wouldn’t be like this. Not anymore.

THLOPP.

Henrik was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of a large rock being swallowed by water. To little surprise, he saw John staring moodily at him by the lakeside. _Accusingly, even,_ he thought, and took a deep breath.

_Time to face the music._

He averted his gaze and trudged his way to a small bank to where they would usually sit. It had been overgrown and uncomfortable when they’d first started to linger there. Now it was practically a nest, though he noted John had gone to great pains to conceal their presence by tossing things about, with mixed success.

Henrik settled under the tree and arranged his bag next to him. He carefully kept his eyes from John, knowing this would get him over to his side quicker. And sure enough, John’s shadow appeared above him moments later.

“Took your time,” grumbled John before sitting down.

Henrik shrugged and pulled out a lone cigarette from his jacket pocket, only to discover by the lack of cold metal against his fingers that his lighter had gone missing.

“Don’t worry. I may have overstated just how soon my flight was. There’s no rush.”

John side-eyed him, unimpressed.

“If it’s the red one you’re looking for, I borrowed it this morning. It’s on my desk. Sorry,” He did not sound sorry.

“Christ, John. You must have an enviable hoard stashed away of all the lighters you’ve pilfered from me,” He blew out a sigh and glanced down at his bag. “Jokes on you, I’ve matches somewhere…”

Despite his best effort, Henrik couldn’t find them. Henrik sat back and glared at the cigarette. “Right, well, you’d ride with me in the ambulance, would you, if I were to just... eat it?” he said in an affected tone he hoped John would see as humorous.

John shook his head emotionlessly, “Fags aren’t food, Henrik.”

“’Fags aren’t food’,” grumbled Henrik, sadly returning it to its home, “They really ought to print that on the packet.”

“You’re going to behave on the plane, though, like. I don’t care if it is free booze,” said John after a pause.

“I shall be positively saint-like as I hurtle through the air in my little sardine-tin.” Henrik was unfazed by the non-sequitur, particularly as he had set his mind towards his own.

“Good.”

“Oh, before I forget. I know we said no gifts,” Henrik cringed at himself internally, “but… it’s not anything special, really…”

He extracted a small rectangular box from his satchel and fingered it hesitantly before offering it to John. It had a silvery sigil printed on top of the solid black lid – clearly a jeweller’s brand of some kind – which visibly made John’s heart stop when he connected the dots in front of him. Henrik’s eyes widened at John’s expression, and he chewed his lip anxiously.  
“What? Is it too much? It’s nothing ostentatious, I assure you.”

John’s now-feverish gaze twitched as though he wanted to look at Henrik, but couldn’t work up the nerve to look him in the face. He swallowed hard and fiddled with the lid.

“Open it,” said Henrik softly.

Reflexively doing as he was told, he lifted the lid to reveal an inch-long tie pin embedded snugly in it’s cheap felt cushioning. It wasn’t flashy, as Henrik had assured him. It was as eminently sensible as the man who had purchased it.

“…Would you mind terribly not looking at me like that?” mumbled Henrik, trying to dodge John’s gaze, “There’s an engraving on the back. As you might imagine, there’s not a lot of space to work with, so I rather had to truncate the verse; I hope you don’t mind. So it’s not _strictly_ grammatical anymore. In fact it reads like an amateurish stab at profundity if one doesn’t already understand the reference, which— I mean, you do, so…”

John squinted at the tiny words in awe. They summed up every poem, every poetry book he’d ever dog-eared for Henrik, who made him long for beauty and ecstasy and death like noone had ever before.

“Do you like it?” Henrik could barely get the words out.

John glanced around nervously before gazing up at him, eyes suddenly wider than Henrik was sure they’d ever been. The blueness of them was overwhelming and John swiftly dove towards him, both of his hands floundering for Henrik’s jaw while his mouth found its match.

The kiss was long and deep and Henrik was electrified by the intensity of it.

“So, um. That was a ‘yes’?” he breathed once he was able to again.

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes,” John whispered back, inches from his face. His clammy hand was stroking Henrik’s jaw and his eyes continued to blaze, “You don’t— you don’t know what this means.”

Henrik looked dazed and said nothing. A prickling sensation had begun to form around his ears. He indeed wondered what it could mean, what any of this meant. John always carried about him an air of certainty, no matter what he was talking about. If only he could get inside that tousled skull and _understand_. Staring gormlessly into his eyes wasn’t helping, and if he was honest, only caused him to wonder if there was anything behind them at all, or if he was simply seeing what he wanted.

“Well. Um. I’m glad of it.” he offered meekly. He reached a hand of his own up and placed it hesitantly over John’s.

“I was afraid, you know, coming here,” he continued while lowering John’s hand for him, “About what to expect. This… you… it’s the precise opposite of anything I could have conjured up.”

John nodded vehemently in agreement.

“I _knew_ I wasn’t going to make any friends. But here I am, aren’t I? David, Roxanna… and you, John,” He paused as he struggled to tear his eyes away, self-conscious that he couldn’t, “It’s only been a few years and suddenly I can’t imagine having to live without being able to walk down a hall and see you there.”

“I know.”

“And Trinidad feels like a lifetime away.”

“I’ll meet you. I’ll figure something out,” insisted John, squeezing Henrik’s hand.

Henrik smiled wanly.

“It’s not worth it, John. The cost, the arguing with my father. By the time anything is sorted out we’ll be having to get ready for Trinidad anyway. We shall have to make do with the telephone.”

Though no outward signs of displeasure manifested, John’s expression had definitely coolled. Henrik regarded his face, anxiously expecting him to pull away from him in a sulk again, but nothing.

“Anyway…” he ended lamely. He was unsure of how to proceed. He glanced down at their hands and watched himself as he slowly brushed a finger over John’s soft skin, “No more talking. I can’t bear it.”

John nodded mutely. Henrik appreciated his self-control, though it only made him wary. He drew in a breath and leant back against the trunk of the tree beside him and John moved to curl up against him accordingly, his head placed just so that his hair tickled Henrik's nose and his face was hidden. Henrik stared off across the lake with glassy eyes, trying to focus on the sensations, trying to memorize it all as it happened, knowing soon that would be all that remained. He didn't even blink for the warm dampness blooming on his chest, where John's head was resting. 


End file.
